Opinion: Obama's Jobless Plans

Editorial board member Steve Moore on how the middle class has fared under President Obama.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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I ... internal life I'm married to so we have a ... special edition of the show today ... or will look at the president's first term report card ... went to Alexion's obviously makes Brock Obama a political success ... the housing doing is a policy maker as its chief executive ... today we review the results of these major policies based on the goals ... that he set for them ... to start first with the economy ... is the president in February two thousand and nine describing his signature stimulus program ... it's a plan that rewards responsibility ... with the two million Americans from poverty by ensuring ... that anyone who works hard ... does not have to raise a child below the poverty line ... so the whole this plan will help foreign working Americans call themselves ... into the middle class and we we haven't seen ... in nearly fifty years ... from signing them ... is a balanced plan ... with a mix of tax cuts and investments ... the plan has been put together without ... earmarks for the usual pork barrel spending ... editorial board member Steve Moore joins me from Washington ... to take stock of the president's first term economic program ... Steve ... was the goal of the stimulus if that was the centerpiece of the first term ... I marry will boy data I had forgotten to repress from my memory those quotes from Obama about ... four years ago but you know I'm ... that the idea was to try to avoid that you know a second Great Depression and I guess you could give ... you now if I were to great present Obama I in terms of his economic policies of the first term I give them a B a D ... Dive D is a dog breeding um occur but it got it he had him some credit we'd it's true we did not slip into a ... into a great depression the problem is ... that the stimulus plan was supposed to regenerate strong and solid and sustainable growth Mary and that's what we have not gotten back ... as we've written many times on the editorial pages ... the thing that's really unique about this recovery is how I mean they can and mild ... I it has been and so this is about one half to one third the ... size of the normal recovery and we still haven't even made up most of the drama was last seen I mean we've got some numbers to put on that comparing President Obama is recovering ... see President Reagan's and also to President Clinton ... but there we Dallas into thousandnine negative three percent ... twenty ten two point four twenty eleven one point eight in twenty twelve estimated two point one ... on ... that Steve the presence as a key achieve these goals that the economy is growing ... which is true ... of me but why is it that these programs and policies didn't result in at Reagan and Clinton era growth levels ... well because of the Pres Obama forgot the first roll economics that was taught to us by Malcolm Friedman there's no such thing as a free lunch ... the government spends the dollar the dollar has to come from somewhere and so what we got out with the stimulus plan ... for the most part Mary was a dollar extra for every dollar extra of government spending we got to stimulate the economy ... the private sector are mostly investment spending went down by roughly a dollar so there was no real state know that effect whatsoever about spending and that ... it should receive play that quote about the presents a in a word that we make sure that the families that work don't go into poverty ... one of the biggest out liabilities of this president's first term was the huge surge ... in the poverty rate in this country even if the economy was technically out of recession ... Steve it wasn't just the chorus in a society that suffer but also the middle class for two ... we've got a chart on wages and where wages went ... during the first term of the of the president and back a little bit for comparisons sake ... on middle class wages Steve ... what is eating away at them and say are hidden inflation here ... well this is the this is a big problem for present Obama because you know his whole tone of his ... second term a job is to help the middle class Crow the middle class you know soak the rich but about mining the practice of the pot ... that hasn't happened so far that one of one or the other unusual things very about this so called recovery that were in is ... that since the recovery officially began back in June two thousand I ... the average middle class family according to Census Bureau data is lost about ... two thousand five hundred dollars of income and by the way since the beginning of the president's ... presidency that the mill average middle-class families loss for the thousands of ... their investment losing one months of salary any year are ... high in last in CA so that's a big problem is causing a middle class squeeze and ironically the president says his goal is to help the middle class ... is done for her to middle class than arguably any president since Jimmy Carter ... and permanently increase to a government spending in the role of government ... in the economy editorial but we are in and out every item I am having the party of which are right at me that the problem with even if you believe that there was some ... in a cottage on top of fact in some kind of stay below the fact all this time they ... it's not pay for the truth is that now we have the main thing to weed out today that we did have four years ago Mary ... is five trillion dollars of national doubt that the aunt's aam that some point that has to be paid off and the people who have paid off ... are our children are actual ... game that oral board member Steve Moore ... on the president's first term report card on the economy thank you Steve ...